Larry Brody’s Poetry: ‘A Will Of Its Own’

by Larry Brody

NOTE FROM LB

The following poem, which I just reread for the first time in almost as many years as I’d lived when I wrote it, surprises me. I don’t want to do spoilers (God forbid!), but when these words first came poring out of me I read them as meaning something completely different from what they mean to me now. Wondering – Who was I then? Who am I now?

A Will Of Its Own

Having read Don Quixote, and the works of Nietzsche,

And Sartre, having seen Long Day’s Journey Into Night,

And the paintings of Picasso and Miro,

I became convinced at eighteen that my

Purpose was the search. It wasn’t the

Discovery of life’s meaning that meant a

Damn thing, but rather the hunt. This was my

Credo, my beacon, my purpose, and for

Thirty years I kept it before my dimming eyes.

Sometimes I lost my way, and several times

My self, but the search continued

Regardless, as though with a will of

Its own.

A will of its own.

A will of its own.

Now Don Quixote has lost its power over me,

And Nietzsche and Sartre appear far away.

Eugene O’Neil’s dramatic voice seems both

Stilted and shrill, and I can’t separate the

Imitators from Picasso and Miro. Yet the search

Goes on, even without strong conviction, my

Will having become my

Must.

Few lessons are as painful as those that

Teach that freedom has been not true.

For years I roamed under the illusion

Of wanting, but with the desire gone still I have

The need.

Credo, beacon, and purpose have left me,

But the act continues, and my legs grow

As weak as my belief. The search

For something I no longer believe in

Continues, with

A will of its own.

A will of its own.

It continues with a will of its own.

Larry Brody is the head dood at TVWriter™. He is posting at least one poem a week here at TVWriter™ because, as the Navajo Dog herself once pointed out, “Art has to be free. If you create it for money, you lose your vision, and yourself.” She said it shorter, though, with just a snort.